Seth Adam Creates Album In ​“Fits And Starts And Stops”

Seth Adam recalled the feelings that bubbled up inside of him after the release of his remastered EP East Rock back in 2019: ​“I thought to myself … there’s a lot going on in the world, especially the U.S., and I was like, I have a lot to say, I have a real lot to say.” Three years later, the New Haven-based singer-songwriter is singing those words loud and clear on his latest full-length record, the energetic and emblematic Fits and Starts and Stops. Available on CD since September and released today digitally, the album features 10 songs that not only showcase Adam’s straightforward yet poetic lyrics, but also his hard-hitting and harmonious hooks. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, Adam asks his listeners to ponder what they hear.

“I’ve always wanted to write politically, but I’ve had forces in the past holding me back, saying ​‘you don’t want to alienate yourself; you don’t want to inhibit potential listeners from getting into what you do,’” Adam said. He decided not to hold back with this one. 

“I need to say these things. At least I feel a need to say these things.”

The seeds of many of the songs came from ​“ideas floating around on my iPhone” since 2016, Adam said, ​“things I knew I wanted to explore eventually and potentially make into songs.”

One of the first things he wrote was the guitar melody line for ​“Lennon’s Song,” the final song on the album, written for Adam’s oldest child. 

“I was just sitting on the couch at two in the morning plucking something out, and I just kind of knew, ​‘this is going to be a song,’” he said. ​“Then I just started snowballing ideas to call it ​‘Lennon’s Song.’ ”

Five years later, it ended up being the last song he completed for the record, with Adam noting he was ​“afraid to speed up the writing process.”

“It was almost like a self-blocking enterprise. I wanted perfection so bad it inhibited me from getting anything done because I was afraid to write the wrong thing, so it took five years to either write the song or get over that, because I knew I wanted to finish the song to get it on there.”

Adam was able to get the song exactly the way he wanted it. It even moved him (and yes, this reporter) to tears.

“I was listening to it one time, and I was daydreaming, kind of looking at scenes of my daughter … like old ​’70s movies like you would see in the beginning credits of The Wonder Years … and thinking of those different areas of the beginning of her life and that kind of movie-vignette frame, and I started crying. I was also really proud that I wrote the song. It’s different from everything else because everything else is very serious and addresses a lot of issues.”

Adam has previously delved into serious issues on his East Rock EP and with the two singles that followed: 2018’s ​“Anytown,” which was a response to the attack on counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017, and 2020’s ​“At Different Ends,” which, according to its liner notes, ​“reflects the division and loss of wonder in American society from the perspective of one lonely observer.” With this album he feels the first two songs sets the tone for the rest.

“I think the first song, ​“Fraud,” is pretty pointed.… I want to have commentary and say what I feel, but I also don’t want to come across as a finger pointer, because even people that I have disagreements with, they still have the rights and the freedom to think and vote and whatever the way they do, and I have to respect that. I think that’s an innate part of who I am and my belief system, but at the same time, there are some kind of like finger point-ish moments.” 

A similarly pointed song is the second one, ​“Where Is Your Heart,” written in response to commentary on a news station’s Facebook page after the story of immigrant kids being kept in cages broke. 

“I saw so much ugly commentary, people saying things like ​‘they don’t belong here,’ or ​‘their parents are stupid for trying to bring their kids here,’ or ​‘go back to your own country, there’s not enough room here,’” said Adam. It ​“hurt my heart to see that, and I literally sat there and said, ​‘where are these people’s hearts?’ They claim to be Christian or lovers of Jesus, but this is anything but.” And thusly, a title and a song (with the chorus ​“oh my God man, where is your heart?”) were born.

And while Adam did not write any Covid songs per se, the time in lockdown did have its influence on at least one song — ​“Out of Touch (Please Listen)” — generated right after the 2016 presidential election from a voice memo recording laid down during a performance at a bar in Darien.

“I always knew I wanted to do something with it,” Adam said ​“And then one day I was thinking back at the times I drove through I ‑90 and I‑80, the northernmost corner through the Rust Belt, and you see these old factory buildings that are massive but they’re just fields of rust, everything has grown in, nothing is happening. Just the way that little chord progression hit me, I had those thoughts come back to my head when the pandemic hit. I kind of compared what life must have been like back when there’s a thriving factory business and people could make a solid living and all of a sudden jobs are gone, and then having to experience that in our own time. 

“When the pandemic hit, all of a sudden life just came to a standstill and we were all like, ​‘what are we going to do for money now?’ So it’s kind of a marriage of those two different concepts and kind of from the perspective of the person experiencing that. The ​‘please listen’ is almost a cry for help, like this was my life. Everything was so vibrant before. This is what it’s like now. I just want to get back to work. There’s a line in there: ​‘I just wanna work providing for my family and I wonder if I ever will again.’ Both my wife and I had our entire lives shut down. The silver lining from it is we got to spend a lot more time with Lennon that we had ever anticipated.”

Adam also used that time to build a home studio in his basement that was completed by the end of 2020. He started recording the album in April 2021 and found himself able to experiment more musically as well as stretch himself vocally.

“It’s a reflection of having my own space to work in,” said Adam. ​“With the exception of getting children to bed, there’s no time constraints that you would typically have in a regular studio. I had time to explore everything, like song arrangements, guitar parts, different vocal melodies, and different vocal ideas. A lot of the harmony things that I did, especially in the song ​‘Pages,’ were totally experimental, and one day I’m like, ​‘oh, I should add a harmony to this,’ and I was like, ​‘oh, I kind of hear another part,’ and the next thing you know, I’m really into it in the weeds creating this thing I can’t replicate solo by myself, but I wasn’t worried about it. I was just having so much fun. It was literally just like painting a picture, and you just go nuts, like ​‘wow,’ but I’m doing it sonically.”

Adams refers to his new studio as a ​“creative space” akin to a painting studio.

“It’s not necessarily about having the songs together or just capturing them on tape, but it’s a place to experiment,” he said. ​“I was able to push myself in different directions — again, song structures, vocal melodies, guitar parts, sounds — there’s a lot of experimentation of things I never did before.”

Recording that began in April 2021 ended up being finished in May 2022, ​“and that’s part of the reason the album is called Fits and Starts and Stops,” said Adam with a laugh. But there are other reasons too.

“It’s almost applicable to our democracy,” he added. ​“It comes in fits and starts and stops. It’s an ever-growing process, and even at times when things seem they’re at a standstill, maybe it just means that things are gearing up behind the scenes to change again.”

One more reason for that title is also the story about where the cover art for the album originated. Adam and his oldest daughter were painting while the album Waving From Across An Empty Room, by Rob Nelson, was playing in the background. Adam was inspired.

“It was really avant garde,” he said, and thought, ​“Wow, this album is really in fits and starts and stops, the way the music had flowed or didn’t flow depending on how you looked at it. The painting my daughter and I were doing was kind of in line with that. It was just this amalgam of different concepts on this big piece of white paper and I was like, ​‘this is perfect. I’m going to call the new album Fits and Starts and Stops and this painting is going to be the cover.’”

Adam ended up using that painting as well as some of his own old drawings. And as much as he loves to discuss the roots of where his creations come from, he also hopes listeners find their own meaning in the music.

“I really wanted for a change to kind of let the songs do the talking,” he said. ​“Every song I ever write has a point, but I always like it when people come up with their own interpretation of what the song means. 

“If I want anybody to take anything away from this or get something out of it, I just want them to be inspired to think. Again, it’s a very social commentary type of album, and you may disagree with some of the concepts, but I hope it comes across where it might challenge that thinking a little bit. Or, if you agree with some of the messages, I hope it still makes people think or take it to a degree of action, like volunteer or donate money or time to a worthy cause, or to just reevaluate your own system of beliefs. Again, everybody’s free to do their own thing. I don’t want to tell anyone what to do. That’s not my intent. This is just my commentary on the state of the world … or the state of my own world, I should say.”

Adam’s hopefulness shines through in all of his music, and this album is no exception. 

“I’m very hopeful,” he said. ​“I remember being accused in the past of being angry, but I’m not angry. I’m concerned. I have some proverbial bones to pick with things, but I’m not angry. If anything, I like things that provoke to action, positive action. I hope these songs make people take action in a positive way.”

And after what the world has gone through in the past three years, he is also grateful, and that shines through as well. He referenced a line in ​“Out of Touch (Please Listen)”:

“No, I’ll never take so much for granted I promise / no I’ll never take so much for granted again.”

“Even though that’s the perspective of the character of the song, there is a bit of truth to that in my own life,” Adam said. ​“I think everybody, including myself, took it for granted that life was going to be hunky dory. No one saw a pandemic coming. I’m not going to take these opportunities, this life, for granted ever again.”

Fits and Starts and Stops is available for purchase via Seth Adam’s website and Bandcamp, and is also available for streaming at all the usual places. A release show for the album is happening on Nov. 13 at Cafe Nine; visit the club’s website for tickets and more information.